10 People To Follow On FriendFeed For June 2009

Tenth Edition Of a Monthly Series (combined with Mike Fruchter's efforts)

New registrants of any social network can no doubt find the quest to find interesting people and friends a challenge. That's why Twitter built a manually-selected Suggested User List, and why FriendFeed prompts new signups with avatars showing the most subscribed people from across the network. But as we know, popularity doesn't always reflect quality, and often, some intriguing users are much less visible. That's part of why my tag team partner Mike Fruchter and I have taken the effort to highlight ten FriendFeed accounts every month. Even in month ten, I know the well's not dry, so if you believe you or others should be included, you know how to reach me - in the comments, via e-mail, and of course, on FriendFeed.

June 2009's featured FriendFeeders are:

1) Layne Heiney (LPH and His Dog P)

Short Bio: Layne Heiney has one foot in the world of education and another in the world of technology. Holding teaching credentials in both biology and chemistry, this high school teacher also started developing Web sites almost 15 years ago, expanding his "Tux Reports Network" to more than 100 domains. Layne claims to share the his FriendFeed account with his dog, Pascal, a three year old mutt, who does not like baths.

What they find interesting: Technology, Education, Politics

FriendFeed: Subscribe

2) Alex Scoble

Short Bio: Alex Scoble is an IT security professional, video gamer and home theater enthusiast. Though not as visible as his brother Robert, Alex is just as devoted to FriendFeed, and on some days, is much more active. He is more than happy to debate with your your choices of television, and to be honest, will debate practically anything with a smile on his face.

What they find interesting: Finance, Technology, Entertainment

FriendFeed: Subscribe

3) Trish Robinson

Short Bio: Trish, a Houston, Texas native, works in the legal profession, and is mother to her 10 year-old son, Kyle. Trish has a sharp sense of humor, and always seems to manage to find interesting news in the world of families, entertainment, and tech.

What they find interesting: Culture, Family, Politics

FriendFeed: Subscribe

4) Paul Buchheit

Short Bio: Paul is a co-founder of FriendFeed, and was an early employee at Google, coming up with the company's unofficial slogan "Don't be evil", and also making a small Web-based e-mail application, called Gmail and companion ad platform called AdSense. He also is an angel investor through YCombinator and recently started an initiative called Collaborative Charity, aiming to crowdsource donations to worthwhile causes. Paul is father of two children, Camilla and Thomas, the latter of whom celebrated his first birthday last week. His wife, April, was featured in this series in January.

What they find interesting: Entrepreneurship, VC, Programming

FriendFeed: Subscribe

5) Shey Smith

Short Bio: Shey is a Jamaican Web designer living in Toronto, Canada. Shey works for SweetSop Design, which creates Web sites, presentations, magazines, brochures and eBay storefronts. Shey has a degree in IT management from Ryerson University.

What they find interesting: Web design, Sports, Technology

FriendFeed: Subscribe

6) Adam Helweh

Short Bio: Adam is the founder of the online marketing and branding firm, Secret Sushi Creative. Adam helps clients develop online marketing and social media strategies, Web design and development.

What they find interesting: Web technology, Food

FriendFeed: Subscribe

7) Mary Ann Chick Whiteside

Short Bio: Mary Ann is a multimedia journalist with three decades experience, including a 13-plus year stint at the Flint Journal as an interactive media manager, as part of 30 years at the paper, starting in 1978. Since finishing her activities there in 2008, Mary Ann has been freelancing on multiple projects, including Web sites and ghost blogging. She is passionate about the news business, and helping her daughter in her fight against breast cancer.

What they find interesting: Journalism, New media, Health Care

FriendFeed: Subscribe

8) Bwana McCall

Short Bio: Bwana McCall is a quality management technical lead at Hewlett Packard, in Jacksonville, Florida. An avid podcaster and YouTube maven, Bwana stays on top of the world of video gaming and consumer electronics as well as practically anyone.

What they find interesting: Software, Consumer Electronics, Podcasting

FriendFeed: Subscribe

9) Rob Michael (Atmos Trio)

Short Bio: Rob is a professional musician who leads the instrumental Jazz group, Atmos Trio. He has a private teaching practice in the San Francisco Bay Area. He also works as a freelance writer for music magazines.

What they find interesting: Music, Technology, Blogging

FriendFeed: Subscribe

10) Rahsheen Porter

Short Bio: A Customer Account Executive for Comcast High Speed Internet, Rasheen is a graduate of Georgia Tech University, and a part time blogger, hip hop fan and rapper. A technology enthusiast, Rahsheen is a blogger for Black Web 2.0 and is among the more physically fit members of the community, considering most of us spend more time in front of the computer than at a gym.

What they find interesting: Entertainment, Culture, Technology

FriendFeed: Subscribe

Five Blogs Under the Radar: June 2009 Edition

Sixteenth Edition Of a Monthly Series

Even as many people are debating the importance of blogging, the number of active bloggers is still growing. And even if we have grown comfortable with the number of people we are reading, there are voices we are no doubt missing. Each month, I try to find five new ones that you may not have heard, who are working hard in obscurity. Most are interested in a lot of the same things I am - including technology, information gathering, gadgetry and social networking,

To get on this list, bloggers need to post regularly, cover something resembling technology, and have less than 1,000 subscribers or so. We are more than happy to take nominations as well, either here, by e-mail, FriendFeed or Twitter.

The June 2009 blogs are:

1) Jungle G by Jorge Escobar (jungleg.com)

Focus: Social networks, Influence, Technology
Three Recent Posts:

• Social Media is a Personal Support System
• The Importance of a Blogger’s Voice
• Facebook’s (And Other Social Platform’s) Preferential Treatment Should Not Be Ignored

RSS Feed: Subscribe Now

2) Spatially Relevant by Jon Gatrell (spatiallyrelevant.org)

Focus: Product development, Social media
Three Recent Posts:

• I’ll trade you 3 lifestreams for 1 blog
• Really? Kinda has a social media revival feel to it
• Roadmapping: Implementing Strategy

RSS Feed: Subscribe Now

3) Sticky Figure by Steve Woodruff (brandimpact.wordpress.com)

Focus: Social Networking, iPhone, Marketing
Three Recent Posts:

• Good-bye, Social Media – Hello, Networked Communications
• Why I Won’t Stop Blogging
  
• Why it’s Stupid to Ignore Social Networks

RSS Feed: Subscribe Now

4) OwenGreaves.com (owengreaves.net)

Focus: High Tech, Business, Social Media
Three Recent Posts:

• I.T. Decisions – Who Makes Them In Your Organization?
• Your Break Even Point
• Your Passion Is In Front Of You – You’re Just Not Paying Attention

RSS Feed: Subscribe Now

5) Twittercism (twittercism.com)

Focus: Twitter, Microblogging
Three Recent Posts:

• Six Ways Twitter’s Direct Message System Could Be Radically Improved
• A Block On Twitter Isn’t A Block At All
• Three Ways Twitter Could (And Should) Improve The Suggested User List

RSS Feed: Subscribe Now

Want to be on this list? You can catch my eye by posting great information in the field of technology, social media, blogging and the Web. I'll be more likely to highlight you if you blog almost every day, and bring new stories to the table that don't repeat discussions launched elsewhere. And if you have more than 1,000 subscribers, you're probably too big for this.

To see even more new blogs I'm adding to my reader, or get a sneak peek for next month's highlighted blogs, follow my activity on Toluu. If you don't have a login to Toluu, send me an e-mail to louisgray@mac.com and I'll get that set up right away.

Silicon Valley Shutdowns Mean Quieter Business This Week

The global recession has not spared Silicon Valley, or of course, the state of California, which stares in the face of bankruptcy, forced to grapple with an unprecedented budget shortfall. With a statewide unemployment rate exceeding 11 percent, the nexus for much of the world's tech innovation has been severely strained. The unemployment rate for Santa Clara County stands at 10.8 percent, with San Mateo County looking a bit healthier, at 8.1 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In an attempt to reduce fulltime job losses, companies throughout the Valley have turned to every play in the book to reduce costs - stopping and slowing projects, eliminating contractors, reducing pay for both rank and file and executives, forcing vacations, and the ever-popular move of company shutdowns (which we also saw in the 2002-03 recession following the crushing death of the first dot com era).

With Fourth of July looming, this week will see many companies in the Bay Area have their doors closed to non-essential, non-customer support facing employees. Among the known companies shutting down this week are Adobe, Autodesk, NetApp, and a number of other firms, both public and private, who are looking to draw down on company vacation during a time when some employees' thoughts are toward the beach and barbecues.

(See details from Autodesk and one Adobe contractor)

And for those companies that are staying open at a time when their counterparts are sleeping in, there's no doubt many employees are opting to take the week themselves, so you can expect fewer phone calls, reduced Web traffic, and yes, reduced real world traffic as well. So maybe that drive up the peninsula that used to take 45 minutes in morning rush hour just might take 25.

So if you drove into the office today and wondered why you didn't see the usual hustle and bustle, the shutdowns are why. It's a solution that makes the finance guys on one side of the building happy, and possibly the other side of the building isn't complaining much either, with a much-needed respite from the daily grind.

See Also:

• Good People, Bad Companies: The Intersection of Skill and Luck
• Which Companies Will Blink First and Lead Us Out of The Depths?

Know of any other Silicon Valley companies that are taking the week off? Let me know in the comments.

Blogging Is Still the Foundation In A World of Streams

Last week, Edelman's Steve Rubel made an aggressive jump - away from traditional blogging, turning over his site to a lifestream, which captures all of his activity from around the Web. His move, he reported, was due to a feeling that blogging "feels old" and that the new reality is about the flow of information. This followed on to a conversation he, Steve Gillmor and I had a month or so ago, which led to my post saying that RSS felt slow. But while I see some of the same issues Steve has, I haven't made a full move away from the blog, don't ever plan to do so, and for any company I give advice to, I tell them to do so would be a mistake.

The blog is the foundation and center for who you are - either as an individual, or a brand. While I believe the best bloggers in the world are participating outside of their blog, on Twitter, FriendFeed, Facebook and everywhere else, to only participate in those areas leaves a gaping hole. The world of lifestreaming and real-time is fun, but it can be as deep as a soap opera in a world that still demands insightful documentaries and news reporting.

In August of 2007, I said there was a new reality and that "Your Blog Is Your Brand". Most of you weren't reading me back then, but it holds as true now as it did two years ago.

Fellow blogger Jeremiah Owyang added his thoughts on the issue last week, asking, Is Blogging Evolving Into Life Streams? Interestingly, he noticed that Robert Scoble and Shel Israel, who were the authors of Naked Conversations, were now more focused on micromedia (FriendFeed and Twitter) than they were on their own blogs. It's a big reason why Mike Arrington told Robert he needed an intervention at the end of 2008. (Amusingly, Robert is going 'blog only' this week...)



In the last two years, the rise of microblogging tools and lifestreaming services has given blogging a less-prominent role on everyone's tongues, but it, in my opinion, is as important as ever. One just needs to make a conscious decision as to what type of data is most appropriate where. Longer, more thoughtful pieces with graphics and type style should go on blogs. Maybe a few photos and text go to FriendFeed or Facebook, and short status updates go to Twitter. The addition of more options shouldn't mean the elimination of the original.


The Blog Is Still the Foundation
In a presentation I gave to one company this week, I stated the same - I said the corporate blog is the foundation of your entire social media strategy. It may make sense to have secondary and tertiary blogs, but if you tried to just use Twitter and other services and neglect the blog, you would a failure from the beginning.

Blogging is not for everyone or every company. Blasphemy, I know. But it is work, and it can never be stopped. Once you start, there is no finish line, until you drop and become a 24 hour trending topic on Twitter. But blogs are your public whiteboard - extending your voice to your peers, your family, friends, or in the business world, your customers, prospects, partners, competition, press and analysts, and of course, your own employees. 140 characters just isn't enough.

ClaimMyName Mines My Social Media Identities

By Ken Stewart of ChangeForge (Twitter/FriendFeed)

With the proliferation of so many social media services, identity management has become a full time job. What sites do I participate in? What sites do I stake my claim so someone doesn’t swipe my name?

DandyID just announced their new automated identity mining service, ClaimMyName, allowing you to select your vanity ID and up to 3 alternates to search across all of DandyID’s listed services. Choose to purchase a Starter Pack allowing you to choose 20 services or opt for the Pro Pack with 300 services. The automated engine will run behind the scenes and send you a digest e-mail within 3 business days.

Watch as Sara demonstrates how it works:


The Starter Pack starts at a robust $79.99, and may well be worth it for those seriously interested in protecting their brand across most of the major social media services. For those who live and die by use of their name, the Pro Pack has been made available at $699.99, or just over $2.00 per service.

Clearly the equation here is whether the time it would take the serious social media maven to manually and individually sign up for each service would be worth this entry fee. As the world of social media matures, more and more services will have to turn to various for-pay models. However, with so many social media services having trained their legions of users that free is the admission price, even the starter pack will seem a steep price, in my opinion.

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Ken Stewart’s website, ChangeForge, focuses on the collision between the constantly changing worlds of business and technology in an information-centric world. He is always interested in connecting; To discover the many ways you may connect with him, visit him at DandyID.

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Ten Year TiVo Veteran Talks History, Hacking and Partnerships

About two years ago, I had my first visit to TiVo's headquarters in Alviso, just outside of San Jose. That visit only lasted a few minutes, and gained me a new remote control, replacing an original that had passed on. But on Friday, I had the privilege to stay quite a bit longer, as a guest of Stephen Mack, Director of TiVoCast Operations, as he took me on a quick tour of the company's offices, and we caught lunch, talking about his decade at the DVR pioneer and providing insight into one of Silicon Valley's arguably most interesting companies, sporting an incredibly loyal fan base, which includes me as a member.

Mack joined TiVo from SGI in March of 1999, less than a month before the company's first digital video recorder units were scheduled to ship. As he told me, co-founder Mike Ramsay had made the promise that the units would ship by the end of the first quarter of 1999, pushing the company to practically work around the clock, including nights and weekends, to meet the aggressive goal, making their offering first to market, just ahead of then-rival ReplayTV. This episode of Silicon Valley folklore came despite the fact the company, as he put it, had no working software, no working hardware, and no way to sell the products only weeks before the impending launch. Just squeaking in under the wire, the first units shipped on March 31st of 1999, on a blue moon - which is commemorated on the last Friday of each March each year at TiVo, as "Blue Moon Day" - an official company holiday.


Stephen Mack In His Busy Cubicle at TiVo
In the ensuing decade, TiVo set the gold standard for digital video recorders in an extremely competitive market that saw the term DVR genericized by a stream of copycat providers, including the local cable companies, DISH Network, and an on-again off-again relationship with DirecTV, who helped provide the bulk of TiVo's initial subscriber base, even as the company gained more dollars per subscriber with its native sales. In the most recent year, the company turned a profit of more than $100 million, after years of red ink, that had some declaring a TiVo Deathwatch, not unlike the struggles of Apple Computer just ten years prior.

The linkage of TiVo and Apple is more than just in their role as pioneers, but the pair also feature some of the most loyal customers in technology. The pair is also known for two other facets which gain alternate praise and scorn - including its penchant for secrecy and an adherence to NIH syndrome, well known in the Valley as "Not Invented Here".


TiVo's New Facebook Application, "My TV"
In June of the last year, I openly railed on TiVo to work on creating a social network to try and take advantage of its strong brand and to connect users. (See: TiVo Is a Zero On the Social Web. It's Time They Fast Forward.) And while they still have yet to follow on to my suggestions word for word, they are making strong progress in terms of showing they are actively listening and participating in the social space. The company has launched a little-known Facebook application called "My TV", which invites you to share your favorite shows, see friends' favorites, rate shows and comment on recent episodes. So it's close.

And yes, like all other good marketing companies, they are on Twitter, here: http://twitter.com/tivo. Meanwhile, although Mack doesn't consider himself a TiVo spokesperson, he has responded to blog posts of mine in the past that mention TiVo, and he is active on FriendFeed. In fact, in light of changed television programming in the last few days following the celebrity deaths of Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett, he posted official word from the networks there, in case you needed to make edits to your recording schedule.

Working to grow TiVo is a very interesting business. Steven walked me through the company's need to colocate in highly secure data centers in multiple geographic locations - which would ensure the service's survival, even if the state of California were to off and fall into the ocean. We also talked about the struggles that are common to most OEM businesses, where large partners see every proposed change as a potential for compromise. In particular, he recounted to me the challenge of having DirecTV's huge services team trained when TiVo started to enable broadband updates to their DVRs, in addition to standard phones - and getting the staff ready for practically any kind of modem or broadband issue.


Stephen Mack Checks Potential Issues While at TiVo
The issue of DirecTV came up a few times from others on the Web who knew we were to meet today. First, it is public knowledge that the new DirecTV TiVo boxes are scheduled for the first quarter of 2010. Secondly, the hope that DirecTV units would attain feature parity with the go to market offerings from TiVo just isn't going to happen. Units sold through TiVo will always be the first to support the latest updates, especially as partners will remain conservative.

I also talked with Stephen about the visible hacking community around TiVo's units. My first box, a hand me down, had come with a larger after-market hard drive, a common upgrade. Such modifications violate the company's user agreement of course, but the company knows such activities go on, and some smaller "garage" firms have even built up side businesses to upgrade units, which TiVo has no interest in shutting down. Most of the time, the hacks are harmless, although it was not uncommon in the DVR provider's early days to see customers load Phillips software on Sony boxes and vice versa, introducing issues.

What was shut down, however, at least for now, was the company's Rewards program, that gave TiVo ambassadors points for signing up friends and family, which could be exchanged for TiVo gear and other equipment. It turned out that rather than the program's generating a waterfall of referrals from excited fans, it turned into something of a side business for a handful of individuals, who would buy used units from garage sales, sell them to new buyers and gain activation codes, exchanging them for goods through TiVo. Mack said one such entrepreneur was making enough action that they earned themselves 500 iPods in a year (which they no doubt sold).

In the fast pace of Silicon Valley, a ten year tenure at any one company, especially one that has seen such peaks and valleys as TiVo is a rarity. But Mack says as many as a quarter of the initial 80 people at the company who were there when he joined remain, acting as historians among the company's nearly 500 employees.

The company's offices, tucked away off to the side of Highway 237, neighboring Foundry Networks, Brocade and others, feature the interior bright colors of a typical Valley startup. Its meeting rooms are all named after TV shows, and Mack offered up that he had the bright idea to name one of them, optimistically, "60 Minutes". Meanwhile, outside, even in today's heat, a vigorous basketball game was being played, featuring many of the company's system engineers, who battled in a fullcourt contest of Shirts and Skins. The scene was idyllic enough to want to take out the TiVo remote and hit pause, but I'm just as eager to hit Fast Forward and see what the next several years will bring for the technology pioneer.

Ignoring Rationality, I Subscribed to Sirius Radio Yesterday

Last week, I told you that the new iPhone application from Sirius Radio solved a problem I didn't have, namely gaining access to good music - which I can get from numerous sources, including my bulging iTunes library, Last.fm, Pandora, or even streaming radio sources built into iTunes itself, like those from Digitally Imported. But despite my protests, I gave in yesterday and paid up, making Sirius' foray into iPhone applications already responsible for at least one net new customer.

As I mentioned last week, I always had hoped to have streaming high quality satellite radio in my next car, but missed the boat when I bought a used 2006 model and didn't get the chance to configure it myself.

After initial struggles getting the app to work in the car, the application has worked beautifully for the remainder of the seven day free trial that came alongside the iPhone app. I have made turning on Sirius Radio (and primarily the station Area) part of the process of my turning the car on. And if you're a diehard electronic music and techno fan, I can tell you there is just no substitute for Sirius' set of stations on any network I have ever tried.


The Sirius Lineup on Pulsar
But if I were only using Sirius in the car, I still would have passed. Instead, I have also been playing my Sirius stations on my laptop, using an application called Pulsar, from Rogue Amoeba, that makes getting the music on my desktop very easy indeed. Now, I can listen to Area, and get shows from Robbie Rivera, Bennie Benasi, Paul Van Dyk, John Digweed, Carl Cox and Paul Oakenfold any time I am near the computer or the iPhone (which as you can assume is darn near all the time).


My Favorite Sirius Stations on Pulsar
And it's not just the unmatched content on the channel that had me convert. It's also the complete lack of commercials on Sirius, and of course, elimination of static. Pure satellite sound pumping through my BMW speakers on 280 is just amazing, as you can probably imagine.

Last week, when I was first talking about possibly buying Sirius Radio, Thomas Hawk repeatedly said "music wants to be free". But I will always pay for quality - and Sirius Radio has it. I cannot wait until the next long trip when I can charge up the iPhone, hook up to the dash and hit the gas, with perfect music flowing alongside. So don't tell me it was an irrational move, one that was a waste of money, or that I had better alternatives elsewhere. Music, like art, is emotional, and I have no qualms about reversing my position.

Slow Down My E-mail and Slow Me Down Too

Even if I may like to gain access to early versions of cutting-edge Web tools and communications apps, there is simply no replacement for e-mail. It remains my starting point to my information consumption each day, and the major thoroughfare for communication, even as I pile on all sorts of social networking activity on its head. Simple access to all my e-mail accounts from any location has become expected, and when anything happens to get in the way, the results are visible right away.

Over the last few weeks, I have been getting worse about responding to e-mail quickly, not due to any lack of interest on my part, or even the result of an increasing workload. Instead, a new working environment, and new rules from IT, are turning processes which should be a snap into an obstacle course - ostensibly keeping them safer, but at a clear cost to me, and I am sure many of you see similar issues.

The first impact comes from the office's hard and fast rule against supporting POP3 activity on the company network. No doubt a preventative move to reduce potential exposure to e-mail borne viruses and malware, or even a move to reduce the export of confidential data, this move means that instead of getting all my Mobile Me mail quickly into my Mail.app, and responding rapidly, I am forced to read messages through the Webmail equivalent or on the iPhone. As we all know, Apple's Webmail for Mobile Me is substandard - with failure being more frequent than success, and the latency has me seeing red, so I tend to view my accounts on the iPhone and delete junk, before responding to a select few and hoping the Mobile Me gods are happy that moment. Usually, they aren't.

So, while my in box was once somewhat clean, it's piling up, and I'm looking less responsive. It's already led to some missed stories, and people resending messages to be sure I got them the first time.

The second impact runs in the opposite direction. Office Exchange mail is not supported on the iPhone - only on company Blackberries (or through Webmail). Now, this means that if I am away from the office, or not at the laptop, I am literally away from company mail.

I haven't seen the official rule on this one, in terms of why iPhones are not supported. Suffice it to say that "it's just the way it is", and that's probably not changing soon. It could be an issue of not wanting to field more outside requests, or a training issue, but this too slows down my responding to messages, accepting calendar invites, or generally feeling connected.

The combination of these two issues finds me doing a lot of e-mail from home, after getting appropriate network access speeds secured, responding to fewer messages or in shorter length, or generally feeling like I am running an uphill battle. It's almost like I am being penalized for going into the office, when things actually go faster from the couch.

And yes, before I hear the cries for me to move to GMail, I am aware that solves issue #1 (I assume), but it won't fix issue #2, and I don't believe I should have to swap out the address I have used for nearly a decade due to this issue.

For those of you who are under similar limits, how do you handle finding roadblocks put in your way?

The Marketing 2.0 Revolution: Who Is Driving?

This evening, the San Francisco American Marketing Association put on a panel featuring the just departed from Google Kevin Marks, Jeremiah Owyang, Mark Silva and Robert Scoble. I took notes on the panel and posted them to FriendFeed. These notes are embedded below. The topic was billed as how tech bloggers are pushing the new version of Marketing 2.0, and strayed away from the core topic, bouncing to PR, social media, and how marketers and advertisers can take advantage of these new tools.

In a month, I will be back up here, participating with Guy Kawasaki, Scoble and others, discussing the potential demise of Marketing and PR, hosted by Mark Evans, who just so happens to be the president-elect of the SFAMA and father to triplets.

Are Authors or Publications Impacting How You Consume the News?

Over the last few years, participating in the tech blogosphere and meeting many of the people who create and report on the tech news we read every day has made the entire process of consuming the news more than simply a passive exercise. While in 2005 or early 2006, I may have imbibed any new posts that come to my RSS reader as manna from heaven, reading every word to find out what was new and interesting, I now find that my own personal interactions with the authors, the publications, or even the story subjects themselves is impacting how I take in the news. And I know I can't get zapped with a mind-eraser like in Men In Black to have it all go away.

Many times, I have told you that Google Reader and FriendFeed are my two major tools for information discovery. On a typical day, north of 600 news items hit my reader, and I spend a few hours clicking through FriendFeed, relying on my social connections to fill the gaps. And, given my need to make a decision, in seconds, as to whether I will read the article, click through, comment or share, I am now finding that the name behind the story is as much an element of that choice as the headline or subject would be, try as I might for that not to happen.

Sometimes, if a big story hits, all the major blogs will write about it in the space of minutes. That means, as FeedBurner and Google Reader go to work, I'll see headlines from ReadWriteWeb, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, CenterNetworks, Mashable and others come in a rapid fire. Sometimes, I will just share the first relevant story I come across, only to find that the second or third version of that story from another author is just a bit better. So do I share both, or should I hit "K", go back to that first share and undo it?

And that's not even getting to the real fun part. As time has gone on, I've gotten to learn pretty much the entire matrix of who likes who in this space. Suffice it to say that not every blogger likes his or her counterpart across the aisle - and I am being watched. I get direct messages on Twitter, or separate e-mails, following my actions, whether I shared one blogger's item on Google Reader instead of another, whether I linked to one person's story and forgot somebody else, or even if I went out of my way to comment on one blog that one guy particularly might not like. Truth be told, there's no good way to come out of the mess smiling and seeing that everyone's happy - because for some, you're either with us, or you're against us, and there's no chance for middle ground.

So as those messages pile up, and my own personal interactions with many of these folks occur, by phone, by e-mail, on podcasts, or on Silicon Valley events, I start to read and share the news, not with the virgin eyes of an excited early adopter tech consumer, but more often one that has to consider the downstream response I might get if I click here, link there, or comment somewhere else. And I see the names flow through next to the headlines, reminding me of their previous stories, good and bad, their arguments, public and private, or even, who is in a relationship with who... because sometimes that news gets around as well.

I'll be honest with you - for the most part, I recognize I have been incredibly lucky in almost every case. Even though I don't have my neck out there, turning this blog into my source of revenue, I've had the chance to shake hands with most of my brand-name counterparts out there. Even those who have gained a reputation for being difficult from others have been good to me. My online interactions and my one phone conversation with Dave Winer were very good. Every single conversation, by phone or in person, I have had with Mike Arrington has been very positive. I clearly have had a solid relationship with Robert Scoble, and fellow bloggers like Jesse Stay, Rob Diana, MG Siegler, Marshall Kirkpatrick, Steve Rubel, Brian Solis, Jeremiah Owyang and others. I trade e-mail often with those who are not nearby geographically, including Steven Hodson, Allen Stern and Duncan Riley, enjoyed my one time on This Week In Tech with Leo Laporte and had a great conversation with Loren Feldman at SXSW in Austin. Largely, the tech blogosphere is a positive community, despite the occasional rumble that threatens to pit friends against friends.

And for that I am grateful. I just wonder if it would ever be possible again to go back to a time when I got really excited about seeing the news for the first time, for its sake, and could eliminate any personal impact that might overlay the story - not needing to wonder if one blog broke an embargo, or wonder why one product got sent to another blog and not me. I wonder also for those who are not as embedded in this space, how they are letting blog brands and authors impact how they take in the news. Are you choosing favorites? Do you see names and titles, and skip right by, or can you see beyond the names and learn what you came for?

10 Ways Apple's iPhone Leaves Me Wanting More

Ever since I switched from a Blackberry mobile phone to Apple's iPhone, I've never looked back. In fact, at this point, following a full year's use, I am more likely a bigger proponent of the iPhone than I am of the Macintosh itself - something I never thought I would say. While I've gone on record saying that which operating system you use is not as relevant as it once was, I have yet to be impressed by any real iPhone competitor, including the Android-powered models from T-Mobile, or the Palm Pre. For me, I still hold to my comments back in December, when I said there are two phones in this world: those that are iPhones and those that are not.

But that doesn't make the iPhone perfect. As with any other product, it has its holes - some of which seem to be oversights on the part of Apple. Spurred forward by fellow blogger Tamar Weinberg's comments today on one of her own pet peeves, I thought I would discuss my thoughts.

1) Application Sorting Is Practically Non-Existent

I am hardly breaking new ground here, but as somebody who downloads a lot of iPhone applications, I am well into my 7th page of 16 icons, in addition to the core four applications stored in the iPhone's faux dock. To find the latest adds, I have to finger-swipe six times until I find the right one. Even worse, I often find I don't recognize an app's icon, and will have to go back and forth until it is found. It would be significantly better if I could have some kind of categorization and navigation, almost like Windows' Start menu or the Apple Menu to navigate to games, social networking, etc., or even do something simple like sorting all applications alphabetically.

And for those who say this situation is alleviated with the introduction of search on iPhone OS 3.0, it's hardly the answer. For example, I tried to search for Sirius or XM on my iPhone and found nothing, despite having the Sirius/XM Radio application. Why did this happen? Because the app is named "Online"... I kid you not.

2) Multi-Tasking: Where Art Thou?

One of the bigger selling points for the Palm Pre is its ability to multi-task. Just like I can swipe my finger right to left to flip pages in the Safari Web browser, why couldn't I also do the same to flip between open applications on the iPhone? On the Mac (or any computer) it's assumed that you would have a Web browser an e-mail client, and an office application open practically at all times. But with the iPhone, I have to exit out of the app, go to the home screen and launch something new each time. That's silly.

3) There's No Way to Set Preferences On App Music

The crux of Tamar's complaints today... While some applications let you still listen to the music you are hearing on the iPod when you open them up, the vast majority do not, deciding that whatever music background they have provided, or whatever sound effects they have embedded in their game or other application have precedence. It would be great to set up a way to either mute all background music on all applications from the preferences app, or have them all prompt you upon loading. The worst thing is when you're grooving to a great iTunes track and have it fade down to pick up some ditty on a miniature golf app. (Hat tip to Tamar)

4) Rented Films Still Hog Space After They Expire

When I flew to and from Philadelphia to visit Drew Olanoff, I "overpacked" on rented films from iTunes, grabbing three. I managed to watch two, and still have one left to make time for. But while that one film takes just over 1 gigabyte of space, and I can no longer see the expired rentals (having passed the 24 hour period), I saw even this morning that they were taking 4 gigabytes in total of my available data. I had to go to iTunes and manually manage the films, deleting them myself instead of them just going poof and releasing the space for other music or data.

5) The 3G Toggle Switch Is Buried

Everybody knows that 3G is faster than Edge. But it can suck down battery power like nothing else. As such, I often find myself toggling back and forth between 3G and Edge. But to do so is a dumb process. I have to go to the Settings application, select "General", then "Network", and then choose whether or not to enable 3G.

In contrast, "Airplane Mode" sits atop the Settings app, with a simple on/off switch. Why not put 3G in the same space, or let me toggle it in hardware, like I can with the volume or the on/off power switch? I know I move between 3G and Edge a lot more than I ever find myself switching in and out of Airplane Mode.

6) You Can Only Configure One Exchange Account

Need to manage more than one Exchange account? Well, sorry, you're out of luck. Pick one. While we should in theory be grateful that Apple gave us the option to check our work mail on the go, there are a number of scenarios that can see people needing access to more than one Exchange account. For example, if you are a consultant, and you have access to the Exchange server on your company network, but also for the client address you've been given, you can't run both Exchange accounts on the iPhone - period. It won't even let you try.

7) You Can't Customize Alert Sounds

Apple wants so much control over the way your iPhone looks and sounds, they don't even let you choose what your "New Mail" or "Calendar Alert" sounds are. They are either on, or they are off, period. While I don't expect the iPhone to get to the fun heady times of the mid-1990s, when we could customize our Macs to run all number of soundsets, one would think there would be some alternative ways to hear your alerts.

8) Phone Calls Can Interrupt Applications Altogether

We've all seen how cool it can be if you're listening to music and a call comes in. The music fades down, the call takes place, and then it comes back up. Awesome. But for some applications, the phone call can stop it in its tracks, including the aforementioned Sirius/XM app. Streaming music just isn't treated the same way as iPod music, so it doesn't come back when the call is done.

9) AT&T Exclusivity

As if I even need to bring this one up. AT&T is dead weight holding back Apple's ability to grow. One is a flexible, creative, innovative company. The other is a recovered monopolist who trails the rest of the industry in rolling out cutting-edge features, and expecting you to pay a premium for it. Opening up the iPhone in a legal way to additional carriers could spur a feature race that would accelerate the iPhone's capabilities even further, while possibly lowering prices for customers everywhere.

10) Four Icons In the Dock - Period

Adding on to the pain around not being able to do jack with the way my app icons are displayed on the iPhone, it would be nice to see the iPhone dock work a lot more like that on the Mac. My dock on the Mac features 28 total icons, including the system trash. The iPhone offers 4 and 4 period. I don't expect I should be able to post the two dozen I do on a full size laptop, but why not five or six in smaller icon mode? Why should I have to make the tough call of adding the iPod or the Address Book over Safari?

Don't get me wrong - I am a happy iPhone user. But in the face of additional competition from the Android platform, Palm and others, Apple should be trying to plug any and all holes to try and maintain its product leadership. Targeting some of these issues, and those that you've come across in your use of the iPhone would no doubt go a long way. What else do you think Apple should be doing?

Matthew and Sarah Turn One Year Old! (12 Months of Photos)

One of the Earliest Pictures from Stanford Hospital A Year Ago

Exactly one year ago at this moment, my wife and I were at the Stanford University hospital in Palo Alto. She was in labor, and the two of us were eagerly awaiting the arrival of our twin boy and girl. We didn't know what they looked like. We didn't even know what we were to name them, and we didn't really know how much our lives would change. We didn't have a crystal ball into their budding personalities, and we never imagined how much fun we would have once they joined our family.

On June 20th of 2008, Matthew David Gray and Sarah Elizabeth Gray joined our family. We share with you some of the highlights in pictures. Even for those of you who follow us closely on other networks, some of these photos are new - having never been posted to the Web. Scroll down just to watch the kids grow before your eyes. You can catch more on Matthew and Sarah by following our Smugmug account or The Gray Effect.

Thank you for being part of our extended family and community.

June 2008

My Tweet that night, alerting the world we were on our way.
(Discussed on Friendfeed)


Matthew and Sarah debuted on June 20th, but were quite small. Sarah stayed at the hospital another week, as she worked hard to grow.



July 2008

Once we got the twins home, it was remarkable how small they were.



August 2008

By August, they grew used to being part of our family.

September 2008

In September, many evenings were spent with me, as my wife attended her masters' program.

October 2008


By October, though still small, the kids' facial expressions became very clear.

November 2008



By November, the two were playing along with our Schwag Magnets routine, sporting Web 2.0 logos which previously couldn't fit at all.

December 2008




December saw Matthew and Sarah grow more curious about the world around them.

January 2009


The two spend practically every waking (and sleeping) moment together.


February 2009


As the twins grow, they present quite an armful.

March 2009



One thing we never expected was how happy and upbeat Matthew and Sarah both are. The times they cry or get frustrated are far outweighed by their smiles and shouts of glee.

April 2009

The two tag along with my wife to CostCo.

Sarah exults at a friend's party. (Photo by Rachel Fox)


May 2009

Matching clothes are too tempting for the boy/girl twin set.


June 2009

As the twins grow, they get more inventive about boundaries.


The pair relax together on Robert Scoble's recliner.

Yesterday

Flying down to San Diego for a cousin's wedding, the two prepare in the airport.
Anybody who has ever been a parent knows the perfect bond that can exist with children. That we were so blessed to get two amazing children at once is something that is indescribable. We are ecstatic every day, even during tough times. But there aren't that many, and we are looking forward to year number two!

The Changing Subscriber Definition Points to Potential Over Actual

The dust has not yet fully settled on yesterday's news that RSS feed circulation numbers around the Web spiked, thanks to a new tie-up between FeedBurner and FriendFeed that essentially counted social networking subscriptions as equal to those who signed up for your RSS feed directly. But while more and more people find their statistics up by thousands, and in some cases, orders of magnitude, the discussion has led away from what is "right" or "wrong", but instead, investigating what a real subscriber was anyway, and if we should stop thinking the way we always did.

The worlds of blogging and social networking are numbers-obsessed, and the statistics are so full of holes, most aren't even worth repeating. I may be "following" 10,000+ people on Twitter, but I rely largely on the search tool, or browse individuals' updates in Friendfeed. On FriendFeed, the story is much the same. I heavily utilize lists to categorize people I follow and make sure I don't miss the best content, but I absolutely see a small fraction of items. And don't even get me started on Facebook. Given I practically only go there to accept friend requests, play games against my family, or respond to wall comments, I certainly didn't see the photos you just posted.

The "fake follow" is absolutely in effect - even with best efforts.

But in parallel, I've treated RSS (and e-mail) differently. I believe Google Reader is the gold standard for finding information, and the link blog I produce through sharing the best items is essential for me to highlight what I find best, and for those who follow it, relying on me as a human filter. As such, while I may read quickly, and skim often, I always, always, read every story from every feed, to the tune of 100%. Similarly, I always have read every e-mail, even if I haven't made the time to respond.

But not everybody treats RSS and RSS subscriber counts with such velvet gloves as I do - which means two major things. First, total RSS subscriber counts usually far exceed total page views on most blogs, as RSS items pile up in readers around the world and go unread. Second, the religious adherence to a subscription number in RSS that I tried to have, in the face of bundling and statistics that led me astray, is easily shouted down by reason.

I used to look at subscriber counts as a good benchmark for how much influence a blog might have. A blog with 2,000 subscribers typically reaches more people than one with 200, and less than 20,000. With the addition of more horizontal social networking "followers" or "friends" in the mix, I have to look at the number as potential. For example, the new number of about 14,000 listed on my blog (up from 8,000 earlier this week and 5,000 in April) represents the maximum potential people who would see my content if everybody who subscribed to my content on RSS or FriendFeed actually kept their subscription going and active.

And it is this "potential" that is the new reality, more so than a hard and fast number you can set your watch to. But it's also a slippery slope. If we all start signing up to RSS feeds but we don't read the blogs, and we all fake follow on Twitter, FriendFeed, Facebook and every other network out there, there's not really a whole lot of social going on - just blasting out data, friending and hoping that you're the exception rather than the rule.

To accept my new statistics, and those on other blogs impacted, the new reality requires a changed mindset. It's not saying one way is right and another is wrong, but instead, seeing the new data through the prism of our new world, where with so many information streams out there, we are all hoping that our data will catch someone's eye, not that it always will.

Sirius for iPhone Solves a Problem I Don't Have

Ever since I rented an Audi in 2007 while traveling that came with satellite radio preinstalled, I have been smitten with the idea of Sirius Radio, and specifically, the station Area, a great Dance and Electronic station featuring some of my favorite DJs, including Paul van Dyk and Paul Oakenfold. As my last car started to die, I always imagined my next upgrade would include Sirius Radio, letting me get crystal-clear music no matter where I drove.

As you already know, I got my next car after all, and it didn't come with Sirius Radio. So I've been holding out for the company's iPhone application to debut. I now had this fantasy of using the line-in feature to my car, streaming satellite radio through the iPhone and essentially reproducing the experience. That I already have thousands and thousands of songs in my iTunes library was really not an issue - for the geek in me wanted it anyway.


Browsing Sirius Radio on my iPhone
Last night, following the release of the iPhone's 3.0 software, I picked up the Sirius Radio application, registered for a seven day trial, and practically ever since, I've been hooked into the station Area. No commercials and outstanding music. I've had my headphones cranked up when at home, and I even hooked up Area when I have been at the office, preferring good music to being on the phone or engaging with co-workers.

But, surprisingly, I couldn't get Sirius to connect when I was driving, as I toggled back from Edge or 3G on AT&T's network. The one place I thought I could really use Sirius radio, so far, has been a complete zero, saying it was unable to connect.


If Only I Could Pay for Just This Station...
Given I already have days and days and days of music to catch up on, which is already at my fingertips at home or at the office, with my laptop, and also given that I can play this music in the car whenever I want, Sirius' offer fits a very small niche that I would have to work very hard to justify. And while others are complaining that Sirius has not preloaded the app with shock jock Howard Stern or some of its sports coverage, I don't care for Stern, and can get all my MLB games, in audio, using the MLB application for the iPhone.

I admit I love the station Area. Part of me wants to close my eyes and hand over the credit card, paying $12 or so a month to get that station alone - and just maybe I will, if I can get it to connect to the car consistently. But realistically, the debut of Sirius radio for a platform that already has formidable competitors in Last.fm and Pandora, not to mention my own bloated music library, is a tough one. Only if I feel a nagging itch to throw away more money on my music will this happen, and if I ever get too loopy, there's always the option provided to me by Apple of updating my entire library to iTunes Plus for about $400.

So for the next 6 or so days, I will crank up Area. And when that free trial ends, something dramatic will have to have happened to get me to do more than just uninstall. (See Also: Sirius Radio Now Looks Like an Outer Space WebVan)

FriendFeed Sneaks Into My RSS Stats And Hits The Big Red Button

It's tempting to go back the age-old line of there being lies, damn lies, and statistics. On the Web, where practically everything is measured and big numbers are almost always better, counting up one's followers, friends, subscribers or authority is practically a pasttime. But with each metric comes a question of validity - how did they approach that data, and is that process consistent with the world view of what is factual?

Today, for reasons known only to their team, FriendFeed started to display subscriber counts to those FriendFeed users who are importing blog posts alongside all other subscribers, displayed in FeedBurner or any other blog analytics tool. With this change, popular FriendFeed users have seen a dramatic jump in their feed subscriber counts, even if actual traffic or readership to their sites has not changed.


BlogPerfume Shows My Stats Spiked Today
A clear beneficiary of this move, my own statistics ballooned from a possibly accurate count of just over 8,000 subscribers on this blog to more than 13,000. And in parallel, thanks to my importing my posts on my wife's blog, her count catapulted from just over 50 to more than 9,000. (For a site that gets only dozens of visits a day)


My Wife's Blog Stats Are Through the Roof
Coincidentally, my RSS subscribers had already been jumping, starting in late April, for reasons largely unbeknownst to me. In the last two months, I organically saw the subscriber counts pass the 5,000 barrier and crest to the more than 8,000, as I poked through the stats and tried to find out why - considering both Google Reader bundles and possibly a part-time inclusion on the Techmeme leaderboard as factors. But now, pointing to that growth seems silly, given FriendFeed flipped the switch and gave me a big, albeit likely false, foundation.


FriendFeed's Impact Rivals that of Google On This Site
The company's comments on this change state that "you are putting your words in front of a lot more people", so theoretically, they should be counted. But I believe it is less-intensive to follow someone on FriendFeed than it is through standard RSS, and I have no idea how this handles duplicates, though I can guess it's somewhat controlled, given my own stats jumped by a mere 5,000 when my wife went up by more than 9,000.

Rob Diana of Regular Geek clearly made his comments understood, when he said, "Subscriber Counts Now Mean Nothing".

Since you don't have admin access to my FeedBurner stats, you can see the jump by taking a look at Blog Perfume's Feed Analysis tool here.

So the question is - why? Did the FriendFeed team just want to extend the visibility of how much impact their service has with bloggers? This move makes them a clear rival to Google in my own statistics. Or did they really think this was a way to show, accurately, how many people you were exposed to? Either way, as I said on a thread in the site, what's done really can't be undone. I hate upward spikes as much as I hate downward spikes, as we've seen when FeedBurner and Google FeedFetcher miss each other in the night. But it's not accurate, especially when it comes to small blogs hiding on big accounts (like with my wife's blog on my ID). I just hope Twitter, Facebook and other sites don't choose to do the same thing, or we can call the whole tracking bit a wash.

eTrade Delivers Long-Awaited iPhone Application for Stock Trading

No matter how many iPhone applications I have downloaded over the last year or so, I have known there has always been a big gap - that of a dedicated eTrade application, set up to let me trade stocks, transfer funds and check balances while on the go. But eTrade, until now, has stuck with an exclusive contract with BlackBerry (which we discussed in March), leaving those of us with iPhones on the outside looking in. But in the quiet shadows of Apple's iPhone 3.0 operating system release, eTrade finally rolled out their app - and even though the markets were closed tonight, my testing of the application shows it delivers exactly what I would expect, in a clear and intuitive way.


eTrade's iPhone App Highlights the Market and My Accounts
For most traders, sites like eTrade offer an important combination of both company news and trading activity. The iPhone application is no different, featuring near real-time stock prices for the markets at large, and the top news for those stocks any time you query a specific ticker symbol.


eTrade's iPhone App Lets Me Highlight Stock Charts and Trades
eTrade's iPhone application gains me access to all of my account data, from my stock portfolio to my checking account, showing balances, gains and losses, and of course, making it very easy to make stock trades - off which eTrade makes good money.

Just like on the standard eTrade site, I was able to set up alerts that would notify me if individual stocks reached a certain milestone. I could check individual stock charts for durations of days, months and years, and I could place trades from any quote.


I Can Get Detailed Quote Data and Set Up Alerts
Placing a trade on the iPhone is very easy. Testing with Apple, Google and others, I could make a bid for a stock at a limit, and could enter the number of shares of stock, assuming I had available funs to see the trade execute. I could even set up my quote data to be streaming, which I assume will push the real time upticks and downticks straight to my iPhone.

eTrade's iPhone application is one that I've personally been calling for since the first day I got my iPhone. Now that it's here, I can be ordering stock trades from my phone as easily as sending an e-mail.

BackType Takes On TweetBeep With BackTweets Alerts

Two of the most valuable tools I have been championing over the last several months are BackType and TweetBeep. The first searches through all comments around the Web for keywords you define, while the second watches Twitter search and delivers results to your e-mail. In tandem, the pair can essentially run on auto-pilot, giving you a real-time look into what the world is saying about you, your company, or your product.

Today, BackType extended its service to let you monitor Twitter, searching for links on Twitter that contain keywords you define. Like with its core service, and with TweetBeep, the new BackTweets Alerts system will pass on mentions from within Twitter to your e-mail, as quickly as you like, from immediate, to daily or once a week.

As I told John McCrea from Plaxo when I met him for Social Web TV last week, TweetBeep has made it so I don’t have to sit in TweetDeck all day and monitor keywords. Similarly, BackType doesn’t have me chasing through comments and reading every post, but I don’t miss much because I let these strong search tools do the work. (That's also a big part of why I said there is no information overload)

Will BackTweets Alerts be so good that I can do away with TweetBeep and turn to BackType for everything? I'm going to sign up and find out.

Google’s Apps Surround Search, Pulling a Reverse Microsoft

As the discussions around Bing continue, I found myself often thinking of how the product would need to not just be marginally better than Google search for me to switch, but dramatically better - not due to an inherent bias on my part, but because of how the landscape has changed. Under our nose in the last decade, Google has grown to represent much more than just a search engine – essentially recreating the major pieces of the operating system experience around their crown jewel, with a large number of hooks that have me choosing their search over others, even if competitors are “good enough”. And the more I think about it, Google has pulled a “reverse Microsoft”, not so much in an anti-competitive sense, but in terms of how they have created customer lock-in.

Microsoft is in an unenviable position many times when it comes to the Web. Nearly two decades of underperformance on search, portals and Internet access have the Redmond giant constantly changing its approach as it tries to fend off more nimble competitors. But as we all know, it ripped its way into the Web discussion in the mid to late 1990s through leveraging its operating system monopoly to push Internet Explorer to the #1 position against Netscape, adding onto its leading position in office productivity suites, and yes, the OS.

Microsoft customers could be seen climbing the ladder of Microsoft lock-in from the bottom up – starting with the operating system, adding the office suite, the e-mail application, the Web browser, and sometimes, the MSN portal or search engine.

In contrast, Google started with its search engine and has worked the other direction – adding a formidable e-mail option in Gmail, an office suite with Google Docs, a Web browser with Chrome, a portal with iGoogle, and many utilities designed to make us come to Google as our information engine – from Google Maps and Earth to Google Reader.

Meanwhile, as Microsoft came under fire for bundling its browser as part of the operating system and forcing OEMs to preload it and not its competition, Google went out and signed deals making its engine the predetermined default in practically all non Internet Explorer browsers – including Mozilla’s Firefox and Apple’s Safari browser, making it a formidable barrier for other engines, Microsoft's included, to gain share. And as we discussed previously, late last year, in the debate on mobile phones and Web browsers, where I argued that the new tactics will be “all about the hooks”, there’s no question that Apple’s iPhone, combined with Google’s Android platform, will extend the share of Google’s engine even further on the mobile Web.

So far, Google has escaped serious drama in the world of anti-trust, a benefit its competitor from Redmond does not enjoy. As Microsoft is forced to contend with pulling its browser from the operating system in Europe, or seeing flack for Bing taking over as the default search engine in Internet Explorer 6, Google continues to make deals that make its kingpin position even more secure, and add new applications that make me even less likely to leave the site. After all, if I switched to Bing, I would still have no intent to ditch Google Reader. Microsoft has never really competed with Google Maps, making that a no brainer, and though Google’s office suite online isn’t the best or biggest, arguably, at least when I am using Microsoft’s office suite, I am doing it offline, away from the real battlefield of tomorrow.

When Google first debuted and we were measuring its success in the speed of response, or simply by the number of pages in its index, I don’t think we foresaw how it would turn one of the most aggressive tech monolith’s advantages on its head. While I recognize Google Search might not be dramatically better than Bing or even Yahoo! Search at this point, once you take the brand names away, it’s the hooks that have got me.

Die? Thrive? Are You Conflicted On What You Want from Old Media?

If you’re one of the millions who saw the Daily Show last week, you probably saw a clip where Jason Jones took apart the New York Times, asking a staffer to find any news that happened “today”. The paper, exemplifying the “yesterday’s news” mentality that has a rapidly-increasing chasm between it and today’s real-time world, is bleeding red ink as news consumers turn elsewhere for their updates – including many of us to the Web and to blogs. But over the weekend, as the situation in Iran unfolded, and old media, including CNN, was famously slow to respond, there were practically digital pitchforks out – highlighting what was characterized as a massive failure, compared to the personal 1-1 immediate reports we got from Twitter and elsewhere.

So help me understand… Many of us are flat-out refusing to be consumers of the world’s news media, from newspapers like the New York Times and news channels like CNN, chewing away at their ad revenue. Some exult in the bad news as it streams forth – as newspapers close and journalists are sent packing. Others revel when old media makes stupid mistakes in the new world, like the AP demanding you not excerpt their stories, or other sites threatening to sue when linked to. But when a real newsworthy event hits, we hold them accountable for not being there, first to respond.

Journalism is not a charity event. Its reporters cost money, as do papers and stations’ branch offices, travel expenses, and equipment, yet many of us on the bleeding edge are all too excited to mention how we’re not paying them a dime.

There are really two ways I can look at this. One is that CNN and others are being ripped on as a way to further show how out of touch and useless they are compared with first-person reports. The second is that we want to bash the old media when we don’t need them, but flock to them when we do.

So which is it? The New York Times, Newsweek and other print publications made a name for themselves often not because of the speed of their reporting, but because of their access and their willingness to go into harms way, delivering the news in detail, often with many different reporters contributing to the story. Are individual bloggers, stationed around the world, going to pick up the slack? Can the top blogs like a Huffington Post or a TechCrunch replace the type of detailed reporting and unfettered access the mainstream old media has historically enjoyed?

That CNN did not lead the way in covering the Iran conflict this week, after decades of our relying on them to be there, as they were in Desert Storm, Operation: Iraqi Freedom, Somalia, Bosnia and others, is not up for debate. But the question is – did we really not want them to fail, or are you happy that they did?

Facebook Parks Some Vanity URL Seekers in Purgatory

Tonight's tech event that saw Facebook unleash millions of vanity URLs to its fanatic user base has to be considered an unqualified success. It raised significant awareness for the social network, and managed to deliver hundreds of thousands of new IDs every few minutes, without showing any signs of system failure. But while some elite hand-selected users were given their names in advance, another, likely small, group, is in an odd in-between land where the user names were shown as unavailable, but didn't look like they were owned by anyone.

Visible social networking folks, including myself, Jesse Stay and TechCrunch's Michael Arrington were among those remaining somewhat befuddled at our situation - unclear if we were singled out for user name reservations by a well-meaning Facebook employee (who will tell us eventually?), or if instead, we're just in line to be completely out of luck.


This is the URL that makes the most sense.
Like most good digerati, at midnight Eastern, I logged in to grab my username - aiming to get "louisgray" there, just like everywhere else. Fail. It said it wasn't available (at 12:01 a.m.). Neither was "louis" or even "louis.gray". In parallel, Jesse found that "jessestay" and "jesse.stay" were blocked, and on Twitter, Arrington reported "arrington, michaelarrington and michael.arrington were all not available."


This would be a fallback choice, and much less preferred.
While oddly, each of us individuals probably shouldn't care so much about a simple user name we've locked down everywhere else, the uncertainty has us a little befuddled. I want to take the optimistic approach and expect that this will be resolved in a matter of hours, but remain curious as to just how many hours, or if there is a problem with the database that has prevented folks like ourselves from getting the desired names - for whatever reason.

So, for now, while many in the social networking space exult in their being recognized for the names they got at birth, we'll still hold on to our number right now. I'm not compromising on a non-standard ID just for the sake of having one.

Podcast: TheSocialGeeks: I Want the Post, Not the Pre

Thanks to bumps in my schedule, including work, and of course, the twins, combined with the complexities of trying to get seven people in three time zones to get synched up, it has been some time since we got to participate in TheSocialGeeks podcast, chaired by Chris Miller (otherwise known as IdoNotes).

But on Wednesday, we made it, and got the chance to record. In addition to Chris and me, were Sarah Perez and Wayne Sutton.

In the podcast, which I have made available for download below, we discuss:

• Facebook's Vanity URL Rush
• LiveFlows
• Floxee
• Monetization of Twitter Streams
• Social Identity Management
• The Palm Pre
• SocialToo and other premium Twitter apps

You can read more about it in Chris' site, or Download the Recording Now. You can also: Subscribe in iTunes

.

Video: The Social Web TV: Early Adoption and the Open Social Web

On Thursday, I got a chance to visit Plaxo headquarters in Mountain View, and site down with two smart folks - John McCrea and Joseph Smarr, to talk about the open, social, Web, including how communities are improving with single sign-on capability, the evolving of social conversations, and how we consume content.

It was a fun, quick, high-quality conversation that just scratched the surface, and I am hoping we get the chance to engage again.

Spokeo Debuts Social Mining Tool Based on E-mail Addresses

Spokeo, having long since given up its initial plans to aggregate all your friends' activity alongside RSS feeds, in what could have been an interesting mashup of FriendFeed and Google Reader, has meandered ever closer to the darker side of Web, positioning itself as a tool to uncover details about people, most likely without their knowledge, and certainly without their implicit permission. The company took another step forward with this plan today, unveiling an "email research tool" that lets you search and find all the online activity associated with that address - crawling more than 40 networks.

If you remember your Spokeo history, back in October of 2008, the service declared Web 2.0 "over" and ditched its initial plans of posting trusted friends' updates with ads everywhere. So of course, this new research tool is not free.

To save you the trouble, I ponied up $35.40, the equivalent of $2.95 a month for 12 months (which automatically renews), to see what damage I could do by querying a few friends e-mail addresses. Luckily, I haven't had to pay per address, but can query as many as I like, to find what secrets they might be hiding.


Looking up one friend using Spokeo's research tool...

Results! Spokeo turns up Rob's activity around the Web.
For those friends I already follow on other aggregation services, the results were hardly eye-opening. The data was accurate for me, gathering results from every network from Friendster to Flickr, LinkedIn and a ton of stops in between. Spokeo also was able to dredge up the personal details of folks like Wayne Sutton, who was spotted on 16 different social networks.



Wayne, unsurprisingly, was found everywhere.
For friends not quite as active online, the service was not always as accurate. One friend of mine was falsely reported as a Hector Hernandez in one case, and in another case as Holly Hensley. Neither was the right profile. But for another, it found a Facebook profile I didn't know existed.


Spokeo found my blog posts, tweets and links to me.

Spokeo also found my registrations across networks.
Unlike some Web 2.0 companies who have either clung to broken or missing business models, or instead, closed their doors, Spokeo is trying to make a go of it, leveraging the technology that once looked up your friends, and now, for a fee, will look up anyone you like. They won't even know. After all - isn't it their own fault for putting that data out there?

Floxee Offers Customizable Twitter Directory, Grouping, Statistics

As companies and organizations flock to Twitter, there has grown a need to display all the activity from these groups in a central location, rather than seeing each individual stream fed into the massive update waterfall that is Twitter at large. A new tool, available in private beta now, called Floxee, lets you display a select group of Twitter users and their updates alongside a live search stream on keywords you define.

The result is a tweet stream with your own corporate design, displaying just those updates from users you have hand selected alongside tweets from the community at large about you or your service.


The Main LouisGray.com Floxee Page
I gained access to the product, and have an early version of the site up, at http://louisgray.floxee.com/, populated by Twitter accounts from me, Jesse Stay, Mike Fruchter, Rob Diana, Ken Stewart and Phil Glockner, some of the other writers whose names you've seen here this year.


Floxee Watches Who Is Gaining Followers Quickly
Floxee watches each of these six accounts for updates, and even goes so far as to dive into TwitterCounter and provide statistics on our group, including statistics on who has the most followed accounts over the last 7 or 30 days, who is the most active, and guesses as to who is the most conversational or political.


Floxee Has My Twitter Details Down, Relative to the Group
Floxee also lets you dive down into each individual account. For example, you can see that Jesse averages more than 25 tweets a day, and has piled up more than 18,000 followers, ranking first among our small group, while in contrast, I post updates less than 8 times a day, and only reply to people with 7 percent of my updates.


Floxee Also Knows Who Replies and Who Blasts Links or Politics
For large multi-author blogs, Floxee can offer an interesting desination page to show what the team is thinking. For small or medium size businesses adopting Twitter, it could also be a good place to see the public updates from colleagues and watch the company's impact online.

You can get into the private beta by checking out floxee.com. Don't forget to check ours out at louisgray.floxee.com

FFundercats Podcast Episode 32: Things That Make You Go Bing

In April, we had the opportunity to first take part in the epic whirlwind of social media fun that is the FFundercats, FFundercats, a project undertaken by Josh Haley and Johnny Worthington, who have teamed up to create a fun weekly show centered around all things FriendFeed. At that time, they claimed I tried to "drop science" and explain how we operate in this real-time world. Missing the duo, I begged, pleaded and bribed the pair to be back on this last Friday, and, luckily they let me return.


Friday's podcast focused on some of the major topics you have seen us discuss in the last few weeks, including the "Blame Drew's Cancer" phenomenon, my new (used) car, the introductions of Google Wave and Microsoft Bing, as well as other items that keep FriendFeed's community going. And, as per usual, there was a highly active chat throughout the show, which you can find here.

You can check out the podcast on the FFundercats site, or subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.

AT&T Has Us Approach Intersection of Doing "Right", Common Sense

For the most part, I believe people are good and try to honor the law. Most people, regardless of religion or upbringing, believe it is wrong to lie, to steal or to cheat. But sometimes, there comes a perceived imbalance that drives a mob of people to collectively break the law and flaunt the rules, until the teeming anarchy threatens to break down the system, save it for a clear thinking authority figure who steps in and offers an acceptable alternative. We saw this with the boom of Napster and again with the rise of peer to peer networks for video trading. We saw it two years ago when users gloriously jailbroke their iPhones to install much-desired apps, and we are possibly seeing it again now that it looks like many existing iPhone 3G owners, shackled to AT&T for their service, are going to be unable to perform tasks possible from other carriers.

Going back to the root of the first two examples, with Peer to Peer networks and Napster, why were people sharing files and downloading like mad? For many people, it wasn't a matter of wanting to steal from the record companies, or to defraud artists. From the many stories I read and the people I talked to in that era, the most active Napster users were also among the ones with the largest legitimate music collections, the ones who made visiting a record store or concert a regular occurrence. But there came an imbalance between the ease of acquisition and the price of acquisition of the media, as prices for individual CDs rose from the $9.99 range to $13, $15, $18 and beyond.

Napster, Kazaa and other peer to peer networks, offered an alternative that delivered music of all types quickly, depending on download speeds, and for extremely low cost (free). And instead of downloading full albums, users could find individual tracks and get those alone.

It took a realistic alternative, like iTunes, that offered low per-track pricing and easy, trusted, downloads to push people to move away from illegal options, and for the most part, they have. Similarly, options like Netflix, Amazon Unbox and iTunes again provided users with trusted inexpensive video downloads that were less costly than the rapidly-rising theater experience, with its $10+ tickets (not to mention inability to pause the film).

In each case, consumers, with common sense, grew tired of the restrictions placed on them from an uncaring monopolistic industry. And while the traditional entertainment and media moguls are still reeling from having to adjust to the new rules placed on them by consumers, other old world giants think they can play the game and be a gatekeeper. AT&T's woes were painfully shown by Apple yesterday, who quietly called out the carrier for being behind in practically every important way - not enabling tethering for the iPhone, being incapable of supporting MMS, and giving all of us early adopters a dramatic case of sticker shock when we considered upgrading.

The world of common sense again says that if customers want to pay for cutting edge technology and are willing to pay for your services, they will. But they don't like being forced into a less than ideal situation that makes them feel like they are paying top dollar and getting lowest rung support.

I haven't slammed AT&T much and haven't championed them either. Phone services, like electricity and water, are a utility - something that should just work in the background. The fact that we are even talking about them now means something has failed. It's a relatively quiet group of folks, so far, who feel wronged by the phone monolith's position, but if the failures continue, they will start to break the rules, because common sense says they should, and eventually, the wrong will be right.

Palm and Bing Triumph Over Low Bars They Set for Themselves

Amidst the buzz from Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference that took over the tech news world today, in the shadows, something very weird has happened. Companies that were once market leaders, and then, later, laughed at as the ugly stepchildren in tech, are being championed once again. And this time, they are being lauded not because they are the best necessarily, but because they are doing a good enough job to avoid ridicule - a good enough job for us to praise them for not completely being full of fail. Of course, I'm talking about Palm's new Pre and Microsoft's latest search entry, Bing.

I have never seen, touched or tasted a Palm Pre. I've heard they are hard to come by, and they were only available initially to a select list of reviewers. So far, the reviews are good, and the Pre is being seen as a real challenger to the iPhone. While we all ignore the traditional market leaders, like Nokia, Sony Ericsson or Motorola, it is Palm, Apple and Google who have us talking about phones. And Palm, despite being brand new and having an application store with a few dozen applications, compared with the tens of thousands on the iTunes Store, is giving people pause because it is even coming up at all. We had left them for dead, and they are rising like Lazarus, becoming part of the conversation, when most of us expected them to just go away.

Similarly, Microsoft's Bing continues to get positive writeups as people realize you can search with it and not suffer a fatal disk error. Over the weekend, a site was built that showed Bing going head to head with Google and Yahoo!, in a blind test, and doing very well, more so than likely any of us would have anticipated. While it still was losing, the results, showing it competitive at all, were enough to change our perceptions a bit - after years of seeing Microsoft unable to impress us while under assault from Mountain View.

It's quite odd, really. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that much of the tech blogosphere likes so much to rally around failures that when something miraculous like Bing being ahead of Yahoo! search in market share for a 24-hour period happens, it becomes front page news - or that the Pre actually had people waiting in line for its debut. We were all prepared to write about the disaster, so when something resembling a middling success struck, it caught us all by surprise.

But a few days of positive headlines and friendly nods cannot a market share leader make.

Palm wades into a hostile cell phone environment where Apple leads in mindshare and has the ears of thousands of developers looking to make serious coin. Google has extended their reach to many different applications beyond vanilla search - from YouTube to Google Reader, GMail, Maps, Earth, Docs and so much more, making replacing a search engine or swapping out mobile phones, once a choice has been made, that much more difficult. As I wrote on FriendFeed, and said in Jesse Stay's first podcast tonight, even if the Pre and the iPhone were feature equal, it's the integration with iTunes and all its applications that makes the difference for me now. I'm invested in this platform, and I'd venture a guess that a ton of other people are too, AT&T or not.

As for Bing? Google is the default search engine in my Safari. I trust Google to get the right results, and even catch myself searching it for results from my own blog posts' history often. Bing is a cute alternative - something to use if Google ever ticks me off, or magically, goes down for any extended period. But it hasn't delivered the "wow" experience that tells me a good reason to switch. Microsoft may have built a better mousetrap than their previous models, but they don't have enough bait.

Microsoft and Palm. One, the current and longtime leader in operating systems and office software. The other, the onetime leader in handheld operating systems. Now, today, both have tarnished brands looking for a little spitshine. They may have gotten a little buffing, but not enough to have me seeing them in a new light.

Facebook Connect on My iPhone Games Is a Huge Win

When I attended the SXSW conference this March, I was able to see the announcement, by Dave Morin, the company's senior platform manager, that Facebook Connect would be integrated with iPhone applications, essentially adding the glue between the world's most popular social network with the digerati's most treasured mobile phone (a debut that was much anticipated). In the ensuing months, as I have seen Facebook Connect be added to more and more applications on my iPhone, I have really come to enjoy its benefits.

At the end of 2007, I said that the major benefit of having a Facebook account was for playing games with family, spread across the country.


Connecting With Facebook from My iPhone Finds My Scrabble Games
I would guess that behind accepting new friend requests, the number one thing I use Facebook for is just that - playing games, such as Scrabble, with my family, or Scramble, a Boggle-like game I sometimes play versus Anna Billstrom, if for no other reason but to remember how much better she is at it than I am.



I Can See Both Active and Archived Scrabble Games from Facebook
Now, thanks to the Facebook Connect and iPhone app integration, I can play the same Scrabble games from Facebook on my iPhone. Just by clicking the app and seeing My Games in Facebook, I can play my active boards, or review archived games with a few taps of my finger. The experience, with the exception of screen size, is virtually the same - and it has let me make a few moves when I'm not attached to my laptop. (which also reduces my tendency to use online resources for better moves)

I haven't always been a huge fan of Facebook. I can't sit on it all day and respond to status updates. But the network has a ton of data on me in my social profile. I've already asked them to be utilized and help block ads that are don't make sense for me, even if they are still doing a bad job at it themselves. But now that I am seeing how easily they can be leveraged for apps, I'd like to see even more iPhone apps to look this direction and connect with the Facebook Connect platform to know the real me and get my data. It really can enhance the experience.

What Makes More Sense: iPhone Tethering or a Wireless Card?

This week is Apple's annual Worldwide Developers' Conference (WWDC). Widely anticipated to be part of the week's festivities is the roll-out of an upgraded iPhone, and of course, its use of the long-awaited iPhone 3.0 software, which will contain a number of solid features, not the least of which is Apple-approved tethering, which would let you use your iPhone essentially as a wireless modem for your laptop, giving you Web access at 3G speeds.

Tonight, while driving back from the Sacramento area after a weekend at my parents, I got in the passenger seat, as my wife drove, and popped open the laptop to queue a list of e-mails, in an attempt to make sure I hadn't overlooked anything in the in box. But, like on an airplane with no WiFi, I couldn't check new messages, and my responses had to wait until the next time I was connected.

Meanwhile, I could always close the laptop, and look instead to my iPhone for the latest e-mails, and surf the Web, but on a smaller screen.

And that all seemed silly. My iPhone had the Web, and the laptop didn't. If the iPhone and computer were set up for tethering, I could leverage the iPhone's Web connection and use the computer's larger screen, its desktop applications and file archive.

And there's the second option - purchasing a dedicated wireless card.

I always had a tendency to mock the wireless cards I've seen added to other's laptops. My Macs have always had 802.11 embedded, and I try to stay close enough to WiFi, but if I had that wireless card in my MacBook Pro, I wouldn't ever really have to think about it. I could have surfed the Web in the car, and I could take the laptop to the park, making that my home office.

Both solutions have their positives and negatives, if I think too hard about it. I am already paying for the iPhone's unlimited data plan from AT&T, so cost would not be an issue, while, I would no doubt sap the iPhone's battery life. Also the clumsiness of making sure the two devices were connected, when I would like to remove wires, and not add more, would be annoying.

But I also don't want to set up yet another recurring monthly payment to fuel my technology addiction, so getting a wireless card that goes virtually anywhere seems like overkill.

We will find out on Monday if we are any closer to having an Apple-approved solution for iPhone tethering, and of course, if it works for the iPhone I have now, not just the next generation. If I have it, I'll try it out, for sure. But as I know a number of my contacts, such as Jesse Stay, have already sprung for the wireless card, what would you recommend? Should I just follow Apple like an unthinking sheep?

MLB's iPhone App Lets You Watch Any Game In Ten Minutes

It's well-known that I am a big iPhone fan. It's almost as well-known that I'm also a huge baseball fan, and have been since I was very small. These two factors contributed to my buying the iPhone application from Major League Baseball a no-brainer before the season started. In addition to getting live "gameday" information for any game, box scores and a post-game recap for any contest, the application also features rich media, such as video highlights and audio coverage from both home and away squads - keeping me up to date to any contest, anywhere my iPhone can pick up a few bars from AT&T's 3G network, or over WiFi.


Condensed Game Recaps In Video Are Available Post-Game
At some point in the last two weeks, MLB updated their application, adding a new feature that is extremely valuable if you want to rapidly get a recap of a game you missed - posting video summaries of the contest after every game, lasting only ten minutes or less.

Instead of some suit in a studio interpreting what they think are the best games to display, or the best highlights from each game for you to consume, you can see practically every play, condensed. If there was a hit, it will be there. A run, it's there. Strikeouts. Big plays. All of it.


This Yankees/Rangers Game Can Take Only About 7 Minutes
This is no three-hour time sink, that an archived game on TiVo would be. Today, I literally watched Saturday's Oakland A's game, from start to finish, as my wife drove to church. And with the abbreviated games, I can watch more than just my favorite team. I can see the Yankees play the Red Sox. I can watch the Tampa Bay Rays play their cross-state rivals, the Florida Marlins, or any rivalry, real or imagined. And I don't have to sit through stretches of well... stretching. Or spitting. Or scratching. I don't have to watch foul balls, or coaching visits to the mound. It's a rapid fire approach to the national pastime.


I Can See All the Plays, Big and Small, Quickly
If you are one of the many who already bought the MLB app for the iPhone, you've already got it. Find the condensed versions in the "Video" section of any game. If you don't have it yet, but love baseball, now would be the time.

Podcast: Incidental Interview on #BlameDrewsCancer, More

Sheryl Breuker, who we recently featured in the 10 FriendFeeders to follow for May post, spoke with me yesterday for her Incidental Interviews series, and unlike many other podcasts I've done, she started off not by talking about every service we use, or about the latest tech gadgets.

Instead, she wanted to find out about some of our recent updates that have impacted us personally, and then we dived into geekery.

In the podcast, which I have embedded below, we discuss:

• Drew Olanoff and the #BlameDrewsCancer phenomenon
• My obtaining Robert Scoble's car
• How we use FriendFeed
• The Extended LouisGray.com team of writers
• How we find new tools as an early adopter
• Social media in business
• Conflicts of interest between work and blog?
• And more...

You can find Sheryl's site here: Stardust Global Ventures

Download the Recording Now or Subscribe in iTunes

The Rumors Are True - I Bought Robert Scoble's BMW

What Was Once Scoble's... Is Now Mine
I don't consider myself a car person - and on both occasions where I have had to replace my car, it has been only after a mechanical problem's repair costs look to far outstrip the true value of the vehicle. That was true in 1999 when I returned my used 1991 Ford Escort GT, picking up a used 1998 Mercury Tracer, and true again this week, as I leave the Tracer behind, trading up to a used 2006 BMW 325i. The Tracer, with more than 140,000 miles on it, has served me well for a decade, but with its transmission toast, it was time to let go.

But, as with most things we've discussed on the blog over the last couple years, we turned to the Web to solve our issue, when it presented itself, starting back on March 28th.

Upon hearing I needed to pay upwards of $4,000 to fix my broken Tracer, my tendency would be to walk down the street to the nearest dealer and find something, anything to replace it. But instead, this time, I posted a note to FriendFeed, explaining the situation, and asking the vibrant community for feedback. In the discussion, seeing more than 80 comments, I explained I wanted to be more like my peers in Silicon Valley, but honestly didn't want to go in debt for the privilege.

In the middle of our back and forth, Robert Scoble swooped in with an offer I had to pay attention to. He posted, "Louis: we are selling our 2006 BMW 325i with 56,000 miles. Make me an offer. Well maintained and fun to drive."


The "New to Me" BMW Safely In Our Parking Lot
56,000 miles sounded a bit high, but considering Robert's visibility, it'd be bad for him to pass along a lemon. I was definitely interested. In April, I saw the car at an tech meet-up in Mountain View, and was even more convinced it was the right way to go, even after independently looking at alternatives throughout the Bay Area, to see if I could get a newer, better, car for the price Robert was offering.

In the meantime, Robert and I said we would target the end of May for a purchase. He was awaiting the delivery of a new Toyota Prius, and on Monday, it arrived. This put everything in motion, so on Tuesday night, we packed up the twins, headed to Half Moon Bay, and made the deal. Now, the car that was once Robert's is now mine (assuming my check clears the bank, and I have no concerns).

By Friday, a charity will come pick up my Tracer, and give me a tax deduction of a mere $500.


The Obama/Biden Sticker is From Robert. Should I Ditch It?
That I bought my BMW from Robert instead of a random car salesman or third party advertiser on Craigslist, eBay or the San Jose Mercury News speaks volumes in terms of how we can leverage our connections forged online. Though I've grown to know Robert well over the last few years, I learned of him through blogging, and he found out of my situation using FriendFeed. Much of our discussion about the transaction has been public, in fact, leading from the first offer, to his later posting, on April 15 that he was still planning to sell it to me.

Robert is happy that he has his new Prius, and no doubt happy he was able to pass along his car that he enjoyed to a good friend. Our family is happy because we managed to find a respectable, nice car without having to sell one of our kids or mortgage their future. And both of us are no doubt happy that we used the social networks we both have been promoting for years. Unfortunately for me, the BMW doesn't have any aftermarket enhancements that tap into the real-time Web. I was hoping Robert would have made the car one of a kind. But it's still a great deal and I'm glad I could leverage the Social part of the Social Web to get it done.

I #BlameDrewsCancer For Why Bad Things Happen to Good People

Last year, when ReadBurner was saved from an early demise, I gained more than the return of a site I enjoyed and found useful. I also gained a good peer and friend, in Drew Olanoff, who along with Adam Ostrow and a small team of developers, have been working on expanding ReadBurner, and extending its product line, including BurnURL, which we have discussed before. For whatever reason, Drew almost immediately transformed from a virtual world acquaintance who I knew through podcasts and trading e-mails, to a real-world friend, someone who I know I can call practically any time, any day.

Drew is energetic. Drew is geeky and loves it. Drew is really funny and always has me laughing. Drew is sharp and has a great eye for what works and what doesn't. Drew has a sense of personal style that you can see in everything he touches, from his own blog, to his work at ReadBurner, and previously at Strands, or his new job at GOGII.

And Drew is selfless. He famously got a woman's Twitter account ID tattooed on his arm for charity. And he was the first to ever dare and babysit my twins when they were very small.

But in May, my conversations with Drew changed tone. Drew had found a lump in his neck and throat area, and smartly thought to go to see a doctor. His symptoms pointed to his possibly having Hodgkins Lymphoma, a form of cancer. As his tests were being reviewed, I spoke to my dad, also an MD, and asked what he thought. In his matter of fact way, he ageed, saying, "Yup. Sounds like lymphoma."

Drew got the news not too long ago, that yes, he had been diagnosed with cancer. The big C... and would have to undergo chemotherapy. In fact, his first chemotherapy session was this last Monday. We've talked in the last few weeks on the phone about how he feels, what he expects, and how this will change him. But even as the disease tries to sap his physical strength, Drew's spirit is not being dampened. He is taking on this challenge like any other, and is looking to heighten awareness and deliver change.


You Can See What People Blame On Drew's Cancer Here
Today, in a heartfelt post, he revealed his battle with cancer, and started a new movement, to "Blame Drew's Cancer" for anything you want. Simply post a note to Twitter with the hashtag #blamedrewscancer and a dedicated site at http://www.blamedrewscancer.com will show whether you blame his cancer for your losing your keys to the downfall of your favorite sports team, or the economy at large. And with time, Drew will likely announce corporate partners who are going to work with him to kick cancer in a place that hurts.

I blame Drew's cancer for going after a guy who has been nothing but good news ever since he entered our family's life. Our kids love him and so do my wife and I. That's why we're asking you to also Blame Drew's Cancer... and show the big C who is boss.

DandyID Provides a Path to Social Identity Management

By Ken Stewart of ChangeForge (Twitter/FriendFeed)

In January 2009, I stumbled across a wonderful little company with a big idea: Create one place to collect, control, discover, and analyze your social profiles – a LinkedIn of social media, if you will.

Where services such as Facebook, Twitter, and FriendFeed help you create or manage content, DandyID’s ultimate objective is not to be another repository for content, but an identity and brand management dashboard of your online profiles which comprise the you-component in social media.

Since January, Sara Czyzewicz, Arron Kallenberg, and the growing DandyID team continue to fine tune their engine and are announcing a few new services for their growing subscriber base. I had a chance to catch-up with Arron on the phone last week, and we spent a few hours discussing some of the exciting new offerings coming to DandyID:

Verification Services:

Think of verification as the VeriSign of social media. The new verification services will allow you, as a DandyID community member, to create an authentic, centralized hub displaying all of your various social profiles in a convenient and discoverable identity management offering.

A few of the first verification integrations are:

1. Twitter
   
2. Brightkite
3. MySpace
4. YouTube
5. Flickr
6. Facebook
   

Free and Pro Versions:

DandyID is launching a “Pro” version to complement their free offering. When asked about the difference, Arron succinctly offered this explanation:

The Free version is very rich, and intended to help you collect yourself, verify yourself, and proliferate yourself. The Pro version is intended to help you understand the impact of your identity and brand, ultimately bringing value to the identity.

Analytics:

As part of their new Pro version of DandyID, analytics are being introduced for those more interested in understanding the impact of their social identity, what services their community frequents, and where the ideal intersection of community and identity proliferation might exist

1. Personal Stats: Comprised of Service Stats, Site Stats and Users these services offer a handy toolset to dig in and understand how people are using your profiles to find you, a traffic breakdown of how people are using your services, and other DandyID users who have visited your identity.

2. Social Analytics: This tool allows you to visually see what percentage of your friends frequent various services such as FriendFeed, Twitter, or Facebook.. A great use for this might be to help you increase your interaction within a given service subset to maximize the time you pour into your social brand.

3. Contact Updates: Build an RSS feed to monitor identity updates by your communities.

Intersections:

In summary, the DandyID team continues to build out some interesting offerings in pursuit of the perfect web. However, I think I am most enamored with the thought of what this young service can offer to us to this fractured social web in which we all live in today.

Does this create a hub from which the spokes of our brand can turn?

Only time will tell, but at the intersection of our exponentially increasing activity and the evolution from search to discovery lies the need to proliferate your online identity in a meaningful and manageable way.

What path do you intend to take?

Update: Allen Stern posted some really great information here, and a SXSW video interview.

---

Ken Stewart’s website, ChangeForge, focuses on the collision between the constantly changing worlds of business and technology in an information-centric world. He is always interested in connecting; To discover the many ways you may connect with him, visit him at DandyID.

---

TweetStats Down More than 24 Hours As Twitter Attacks Cache Issues

TweetStats: Closed Since Sunday Afternoon
On Sunday, we mentioned Twitter had run into a bug that masked the display of third party clients on the service, erroneously reporting all updates as coming from "Web", whether they were, or if they were instead from the mobile interface or any of the growing array of applications that interact with the microblogging leader. Now into Tuesday, the bug hasn't yet been fixed, and in the meantime, popular statistics tracker TweetStats has been shut down - incapable of operating correctly with bad data pouring in.

Twitter's API team is telling developers that the "from Web" issue is the result of large growth in the company's database, thanks to a recent increase in API developers and their registering applications to work with OAuth. The database object reportedly grew to a size incapable of being cached, dramatically impacting performance.

Still a small company, rather than push for Twitter's engineers to come in over the weekend to resolve the issue, the company said they chose the "quick solution", opting to "disable source parameters", according to postings on their Twitter API forum here.

Initial guidance was that the issue would be resolved "likely early in June 1 workday" (sic), but more issues have cropped up. The company followed up with a second note saying, "Due to problems with other *critical* code we've had to delay deployment of this fix until tomorrow."


TweetStats Reports The Trouble Sunday
TweetStats shut down mid-day Sunday after the issue had impacted the statistics gathering service dramatically. And while Twitter has again offered a new date of resolution, the developer, Damon Cortesi, has said he'll find a way to get rebooted, with or without help from Twitter.


TweetStats Hopes for Best, But Prepares...
He noted late Monday night, "If not fixed tomorrow AM, will re-open and deal with the consequences."

Jesse Stay has more around the details of the API issue here: Where is Twitter’s Emergency Response System?

LiveFlows Highlights Popular Posts from Your Blog and Network

Ever visit a blog for the first time, and wonder if they have other posts that might be interesting to you, or wonder what other readers like you found popular? What about wondering if there were other blogs like the one you were reading that had similar content? A new offering called LiveFlows, from the team behind AssetBar and FanFlows, is now available to do just that - hoping to show each visitor the most enticing posts for them, based on how they found your site.

Companies like Outbrain are working to help readers see related items from your own blog and others in their network, while Lijit is working to show you related items that are in your social graph. LiveFlows' approach breaks up the potential content based on whether you have a new visitor, one who found you from search, or even to track what they call "dedicated fans", showing them stories they haven't yet read.

The LiveFlows widget, rather than being tacked on to each post or positioned in your sidebar, operates in a thin bottom bar at the base of each blog using it, just like you can see here on louisgray.com, on the liveflows.com blog and on other trial sites, including Jesse Stay's Staynalive.com and on Bryce Roney's blog.


LiveFlows Says "You Might Like These" Popular Posts
The widget has two parts. The first says "You might like these", showing other pages from the site, with a % probability based on other readers' statistics and your own history. The second says "View my network", highlighting the best content found in blogs that are connected using LiveFlows.


LiveFlows Highlights Other Top Posts In My Network
If you add LiveFlows to your blog, you can connect with other LiveFlows users just by clicking "Join My Network" on any widget you find on the Web, and you can see statistics for how many times users across the LiveFlows network clicked through to your content. LiveFlows' goal is to find your best content, feature it and promote it to new users, both of your site and of others. It's a solid way to get your posts more visibility, as you see fit.


You Can Check On Your Network at LiveFlows.com
Check out LiveFlows at http://www.liveflows.com.

Google Gets Serious About Blog Search. Look Out, Lijit!

When I met with the Lijit team in Boulder earlier this year, they asked an important question around brand loyalty. While I was already a user of Lijit, did I feel a loyalty to their brand over others? I thought a bit, and answered honestly, that I didn't (or at least not much). I said that if Google were to deliver an equal or better product to theirs, they were already the trusted name in search, and I would at least give them a shot. Today, Google has done just that, taking an element from Blogger In Draft, and releasing it into the wild. It's one of the many steps required to complete the marathon I told you about last week.

As Blogger announced today, the new Search Box gadget searches not only your own posts, but Web pages you link from your blog and blogs in your list (like a blogroll). This is quite comparable to Lijit's offering (see right sidebar), where users can search my blog, my social activity, and my blogroll.

I haven't yet installed the Google Blog Search gadget on my own blog yet, partly due to the fact I am using an older template, and don't yet want to break what works. But you can see the widget in action on Product Manager Rick Klau's blog on the right side.


Searching Rick Klau's Blog for FTP


Searching Links from Rick Klau's Blog for FTP


Searching the Web for FTP
For example, searching his blog for "FTP" displays the results in line on the blog without a pop-up window or going to a new page. I can click "Linked From Here" to see pages that have linked to Rick that also mention the term "FTP", or lastly, I can search "The Web" at large.

It is an elegant solution, so far as I can tell.

So what does this mean for Lijit? Lijit is striving to find a way to measure influence, as well as to develop an advertising network that is trusted for bloggers that use its products, so this doesn't mean the mighty Google swoops in and erases Lijit of the face of the Web. But Lijit will have to work hard to better define itself and make it differentiated from what Google offers - especially for Blogger users who haven't yet considered moving to WordPress.